How would you like to be a sovereign citizen? Oh, excuse me — that’s Sovereign Citizen. One of the main things you’ll have to learn about in the world of Sovereign Citizenship is the importance of magic, such as the magical qualities of Capital Letters.

A Sovereign Citizen is a person who has declared, evidently by filling out certain magical forms, that he or she is — as intended by God, Nature, the Constitution, and perhaps Thomas Jefferson, depending on which of his letters to friends and offhand notes to himself you choose to cite — a citizen only of him- or herself, a nation of one (presumably with an army of one; and no, you can’t be sued for trademark violation, as we’ll see), who just happens to be residing inside another nation, i.e., the United States of America as currently and corruptly defined.

The legal theory supporting Sovereign Citizenship is complex and very hard to paraphrase, so I won’t attempt it. Suffice to say that it is the sort of legal theory you’d expect from a cocky 14-year-old who is very, very certain that he is smarter than anyone else. You know the type.

But who cares about legal theory? The whole point of the thing is in the benefits. Here, for just one example, is a website that offers a concise summary of them. (Reader take note: This is hogwash; do not apply for Sovereign Citizenship and then come complaining to me when you are thrown in the hoosegow or possibly even the calaboose.)

No taxes! No arrests! You can’t be sued! You can drive as fast as you want to! You are untouchable! No one is the boss of you! Ladies and gentlemen, it’s the Big Rock Candy Mountain, minus the lemonade springs. Want to hear more? Just buy the DVD. Yes, buy; you didn’t think they were giving away this precious knowledge for nothing, did you?

(Suggestion: Offer them an IOU for the DVD. Tell them that later, once you’ve learned how to become a SC, you’ll issue them a bond or some scrip from your new sovereignty. Try to figure out why they insist of getting some of that illegitimate U.S. currency.)

Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind. With such persons, gullibility, which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason and the mind becomes a wreck.

The movement seems to be notably popular in Indiana and nearby regions. Not surprisingly, some of our most fiercely independent followers of cockamamie ideas have taken the natural next step to Armed and Dangerous Sovereign Citizenship. Memo to all SC’s: “army of one” was a dumb phrase when the U.S. Army began using it as a marketing hook; as an order of battle, it’s just plain stupid.

Wouldn’t it be fun to inform each self-declared SC that in order to leave his home, which is claimed as an embassy and hence foreign territory, he’ll need a valid passport with a visa issued by a U.S. consulate and that without that bit of magic paper he’s free to enjoy the perfect freedom of his 60×120 lot? Or how about this: When a would-be SC shows up at the courthouse with his document declaring his new status, accept it — and then arrest him as an illegal alien.